Through the Darkness

Probably didn’t want to make you afraid too soon, Leudast thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. Recared had learned fast, and made a pretty good officer now. If he hadn’t learned fast, he would have been dead by now. Even if he had learned fast, he might well have died. The war didn’t always respect such learning. Leudast had seen that too many times.

He pointed ahead, toward the ruins of what had been a ley-line caravan depot. “A good many of the buggers holed up there,” he remarked. “If we can drive ‘em out of that strongpoint, they’ll have to pull back to right and left, too.”

Recared nodded. “Making their perimeter shrink is a good thing. But by the powers above, Sergeant--the price we’ll pay!” He wasn’t hardened yet; his face still showed a good deal of what he thought. “The poor men!”

Leudast nodded. The regiment had taken a beating cutting off the Algarvians in Sulingen, and another one fighting its way into the city. “We’ve got to make them pay, sir. That’s the idea, you know.”

“Oh, aye.” Recared nodded, but reluctantly. He, too, pointed ahead: carefully, so as not to expose himself to snipers. “Not much cover up ahead there, though. The boys would take a horrible pounding before they could close with the redheads.”

“Can we get ‘em to toss eggs at the ruins while we move forward?” Leudast asked. “That would make the Algarvians keep their heads down, anyhow.”

“Let me go back and ask our brigadier,” Recared said. “You’re right, Sergeant--it would be splendid if we could.” He hurried off through the maze of holes and trenches that led to brigade headquarters.

When he returned, he was grinning from ear to ear. “You got the egg-tossers, sir?” Leudast asked eagerly.

“No, but I got something about as good,” Recared answered. “A penal battalion just came to the front, and they’ll throw it in right here.”

“Ah,” Leudast said. “Good enough. Better than good enough, in fact. Those poor buggers aren’t going to be around at the end of the war any which way. Might as well get something out of them while they’re being used up. Then we go in after they’ve taken the edge off the Algarvians?”

“That’s how I see it,” Recared said. “They’ll start the job, and we’ll finish it.”

The men from the penal battalion started coming up to the front line a little before sunset. Almost all of them were leaner than the poor starveling Algarvian corpse Leudast had kicked. Some wore rags. Some wore the fine cloaks and greatcoats that went only to high-ranking officers, though none showed rank badges. Some wore what had been fine cloaks and greatcoats now reduced to rags. All of them stared ahead in glum, grim silence. An invisible wall seemed to separate them from the ordinary Algarvian soldiers.

And that invisible wall wasn’t the only thing separating them from their countrymen. Coming up to the front with them were a couple of sections of well-fed, well-clothed guards. If the men of the penal battalion tried to go back instead of forward when ordered into action, the guards were there to take care of what the enemy would not.

In a low voice, Recared asked, “Does anybody ever come out of a penal battalion?”

“I think so,” Leudast said. “Fight well enough long enough and you might even get your old rank back. That’s what they say, anyhow. Of course, if you’re the kind of officer who runs away or does something else to get yourself stuck in a penal battalion, how likely are you to fight that well?” He was only a sergeant. If he ran away, they wouldn’t bother putting him in one of those battalions. They’d just blaze him and get on with the war.

It started to snow again during the night. Dawn was a dark gray, uncertain thing. The men of the penal battalion passed flasks back and forth. Leudast had drunk some courage before going into action a good many times himself. Over in the ruins of the caravan depot, what did the Algarvians have to drink?

Whistles shrilled. The broken officers who made up the penal battalion sprang to their feet and grabbed their sticks. Without a word, without a sound but those of their felt boots dully thudding on snow, they swarmed toward the Algarvian strongpoint. No cries of “Urra!”--no cries of “Swemmel!” either. It was the eeriest attack Leudast had ever seen.

Perhaps because it went in so silently, it surprised the redheads more than an ordinary assault might have. The men of the penal battalion got a long way toward the caravan depot before they started to fall. Peering out ever so cautiously from behind what had been an ornamental limestone carving, Leudast watched the Unkerlanters who didn’t fall get in among the Algarvians in the wreckage of the depot. Glancing over toward Recared, he asked, “Now, sir?”

“Not quite yet,” Recared answered. “We’ll let them develop the enemy a little more first, I think.”